


Band Shirts

by montes-carpatus (Carpathyah)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7664755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carpathyah/pseuds/montes-carpatus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angela helps Gabriel remember their past through old band shirts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Band Shirts

**Author's Note:**

> Gabriel is a loving man. He also owns a lot of band shirts. Also, Angela's taste in music is ambiguous.

Angela’s colourful clothing clashed against his monochrome wardrobe when they piled up in their living quarters. Her white lab coats and aquamarine scrubs were folded neatly in her own room while, the rest were scattered in between his and hers. It wasn’t uncommon to find an orange shirt in the same pile of his black t-shirts.    
  


The rare night he was in her room, he found some particular band shirts in her laundry. They were barely even black anymore. They were faded.  A few holes at the seams. He looked closer at the peeling designs. He recognized a few punk band logos and some old rock ones.    
  


“Angela, where did you get these shirts?” he asked. Angela emerged from her bathroom, towel-drying her hair. He lifted them up for her to see.    
  


“You don’t remember?” she replied. He raised an eyebrow and looked at them a little closer. Noticing his silence, she continued: “You’ve gifted me a few, and some I used to steal from your drawer to wear to bed when you were stationed in the States.”   
  


He didn’t remember such a thing, and he tried. He tried picturing a younger Angela in his clothes, but his memory had nothing to offer.    
  


She pulled one from the pile.   
  


“You gave me this one when you were visiting for the first time in Zurich. We weren’t even together yet. It was, what you called it, a peace offering,” she recalled, giggling at the end. She picked at the peeling logo. She couldn’t even remember what band it was, all she could remember was the weird looking mouse creature on it.   
  


Gabriel took a seat on the edge of her bed, listening carefully to her. She threw it aside and picked up another one.   
  


“This one,” she began. “This one I stole after our first night together in Los Angeles. I was there on business and you just happened to be around. We weren’t supposed to be seen together, but we managed to find a way. You were so clever,” she told. It was an old Misfits shirt. He vaguely remembered even owning that shirt. It was faded to a dark gray colour and the edges had many holes.   
  


“What about this one?” he pulled a shirt from the pile. She put the last one down and stared at it.    
  


“We were dating when you gave me that one. I remember getting an air parcel while I was in the lab. You hand wrote me a lovely letter too!” she smiled.    
  


“What happened to that letter?” he asked, hoping that she still held onto it.    
  


“It burned with my headquarters,” she replied softly.    
  


“I’m, sorry,” he said, knowing that he was entirely guilty for the disaster. She took a deep breath.   
  


“It’s in the past, we must move on,” she exhaled as she quickly folded the shirt and placed it next to him.    
  


“Tell me more, it’s comforting to listen to better times,” he lightly stroked her thigh from where he sat. Her damp blond hair stuck loosely to her cheeks as she reached for another. The black shirt she pulled out was familiar to him. It was familiar in the sense that he had vague flashbacks of seeing her with it on while she cried over something.    
  


“I wore it while you were in Zurich for a mission. You were part of Blackwatch at the time and we were forbidden to continue any type of relationship. You were persistent, sneaking into Overwatch territory just to see me. Just to know if I was alright. We spent many weeks apart, and you left it with me so I wouldn’t feel so lonely at night. I wore this shirt until the seams came apart,” she said as she passed him the shirt. It was thin and stretched out.   
  


“ _ I’ll come back for you, _ ” he mumbled, remembering the night. She shook her head.    
  


“You remember?” she whimpered as she wiped her eyes of any lingering tears.   
  


“Vaguely, but yes, I do,” he responded. She grinned at him. She searched for another shirt.   
  


“A-And this one, you left it behind when Blackwatch called you in the middle of the night. You left so silently that it never woke me. I only found your shirt in the morning,” she sighed. “I’ve got used to you leaving during the night. It became part of daily life.”   
  


Gabriel was a sweet man, always could be. He kissed her eyes, where the tears pooled but never fell.    
  


“I remember those nights. It killed me to leave you alone,” he confessed as flashbacks of watching Angela sleep peacefully in her bed as they spoke to him in his ear. He wished he could be there in the morning once again, but Blackwatch kept him away from her.   
  


“Here, keep this one,” he said as he pulled off the band shirt he was wearing. He placed it in her hands. Her face flushed a bright shade of pink and made the freckles on her cheeks more prominent. She was used to seeing Gabriel shirtless in the past, but time had made him rougher around the edges. 

 

“Are you staying tonight?” she asked as she pulled her pyjama shirt off and switched it for the black t-shirt. It hung loosely on her frame.    
  


“Of course,” he said. She smiled wide.   
  


They prepared for bed as they both had a long day ahead. Angela stood at the edge of the bed styling her hair into two braids for the night. Gabriel glanced over to the nicely folded pile of black shirts on her dresser.  


“Did you ever listen to the bands on the shirts?” he asked as she slipped into the spot beside him.   
  


“ _ Etwas, _ ” she replied in German.   
  


“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”

  
“Did you ever listen to _ Rammstein? _ ”   
  


“That’s German heavy metal.”   
  


“I’ll lend you my files tomorrow.”   
  


“ _ ¿Qué? _ When did you start listening to heavy metal?”   
  


“It’s been a long time.  _ Gute Nacht, meine Liebe,”  _ she kissed his cheek and turned on her side to sleep. Gabriel looked at her for a while and he couldn’t picture Angela listening to that genre. He grinned to himself before leaning over to kiss her shoulder, feeling her giggle under his touch.   
  


“ _ Buenas Noches, bonita.” _


End file.
